evaluating management: returns

One of the most straightforward ways of evaluating how a company management is doing is by looking at the returns it achieves on the money it invests on behalf of shareholders. Like most things in finance, this starts out as a very simple task, but soon enough adds refinements that make the evaluation process look a lot more complex than it actually is.

We’ll start with return on equity.

initial equity

A new company forms and sells 1000 shares to investors at $10 each, for a total of $10,000. It invests all of that money one January 1 of its first year.

During that year it earns $1000 in net income.

Its return on equity for year 1 is 10% ($1000/$10,000). At this point it has no long-term debt, so its return on capital (capital = equity plus long-term debt) is also 10%.

equity grows

If the company pays no dividends, it now has $11,000 in equity (capital, too) at the beginning of year 2. To maintain a 10% return on equity (and capital) it must earn $1,100 in year 2.

book value

The total amount of equity a company has to invest is also called “book value,” because it’s the value of the equity entry on the company’s financial records (books).

All other factors being equal, a company whose management achieves a high return on equity tends to trade at a premium to book value. One that continually produces sub-par returns tends to trade at a discount. The financial sector in particular, because it’s hard to figure out the tons of transactions that the big firms routinely execute, tends to trade on price to book.